There was such a heat in the chimney that the woman herself went about almost naked.  She at once loosened little Gerda’s dress and took off the child’s muffles and boots; otherwise it would have been too hot for her to bear.  Then she laid a piece of ice on the Reindeer’s head, and read what was written on the codfish; she read it three times, and when she knew it by heart, she popped the fish into the soup-cauldron, for it was eatable, and she never wasted anything.

Now the Reindeer first told his own story, and then little Gerda’s; and the Finland woman blinked with her clever eyes, but said nothing.

“You are very clever,” said the Reindeer.  “I know you can tie all the winds of the world together with a bit of twine; if the seaman unties one knot, he has a good wind; if he loosens the second, it blows hard; but if he unties the third and fourth, there comes such a tempest that the forests are thrown down.  Won’t you give the little girl a draught, so that she may get twelve men’s power, and overcome the Snow Queen?”

“Twelve men’s power!” repeated the Finland woman.  “Great use that would be!”

And she went to a bed and brought out a great rolled-up fur, and unrolled it; wonderful characters were written upon it, and the Finland woman read until the perspiration ran down her forehead.

But the Reindeer again begged so hard for little Gerda, and Gerda looked at the Finland woman with such beseeching eyes, full of tears, that she began to blink again with her own, and drew the Reindeer into a corner, and whispered to him, while she laid fresh ice upon his head.

“Little Kay is certainly at the Snow Queen’s, and finds everything there to his taste and thinks it is the best place in the world; but that is because he has a splinter of glass in his eye, and a little fragment in his heart; but these must be got out, or he will never be a human being again, and the Snow Queen will keep her power over him.”

“But cannot you give something to little Gerda, so as to give her power over all this?”

“I can give her no greater power than she possesses already; don’t you see how great that is?  Don’t you see how men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how she gets on so well in the world, with her naked feet?  She cannot receive her power from us; it consists in this—­that she is a dear, innocent child.  If she herself cannot penetrate to the Snow Queen and get the glass out of little Kay, we can be of no use!  Two miles from here the Snow Queen’s garden begins; you can carry the little girl thither; set her down by the great bush that stands with its red berries in the snow.  Don’t stand gossiping, but make haste, and get back here!”

And then the Finland woman lifted little Gerda on the Reindeer, which ran as fast as it could.

“Oh, I haven’t my boots!  I haven’t my muffles!” cried Gerda.

She soon noticed that in the cutting cold; but the Reindeer dared not stop.  It ran till it came to the bush with the red berries; there it set Gerda down, and kissed her on the mouth, and great big tears ran down the creature’s cheeks; and then it ran back, as fast as it could.  There stood poor Gerda without shoes, without gloves, in the midst of the terrible, cold Finmark.